MAROKOPA-TE KUITI ROAD.

King Country Chronicle, Volume IX, Issue 743, 6 February 1915, Page 2

MAROKOPA-TE KUITI ROAD.

METALLING CONTRACTS LET DEVELOPMENT OF DISTRICT After delays and disappointments extending over a year and a-haK, the Awakino County Council have been able to make a beginning at the work of metalling the road from Marokopa to Te Kuiti. Mr H. Rothery has made a start with his contract, which embodies a portion of the Waipawa and Kiritehere roads, whilst a further contract has been let to Mr N. Innesa, a continuation of the former on the Kiritehere road, being in all three and a-half miles. The total of ten miles is provided for, and as the loans and only part of the subsidies have been vuted the whole of cannot possibly go on in the way settlers would like. It is understood that the Council is having some difficulty in obtaining loan money, and as settlers have had to wait a year longer than they should have, tbey consider that the Minister of Public Works should be more liberal with them. They claim they are helping themselves, and ask no favours, but only their just dues, for it was that Department that was solely responsible for holding matters up for almost a year. A very disagreeable and disappointing matter has been in evidence in connection with one of the loans—the Kiritehere-Mangakokopu loan. When this loan was carried by settlers it was on the absolute and distinct understanding that the sum of £SOO plus subsidy be ear-marked for the metalling of the Mangakokopu road embodied in that special rating area. The Fublic Works DepartmenJ have repeatedly refused to put this portion of the road in readiness for metal. Settlers have been refund, and during last year the representations of the Awakino County Council on three different occasions, beginning as far back as February 1914, have met with a similar fate. Settlers have again taken the matter in hand and have sought the assistance of Mr W. T. Jennings M.P., for a special grant, and Mr Jennings has forwarded the following telegram which he has received from the Minister of Public Works in connection with the matter: —"I am obtaining report on petition of settlers at Moeatoa loan and road work. —W. Fraser, Minister of Public Works." That somebody is responsible for this deliberate obstruction is an evident fact. The loan has been carried; the loan money, plus the pro rata amount of subsidy voted, and yet the Public Works authorities ignore all appeals of settlers. On the last Estimates appeared a vote of £I2OO for the Pomorangi portion of this route, and, owing to tne activities of Mr Jennings, six gangs will shortly be engaged in widening the road. Mr Jeninngs' actions are being heartily appreciated by settlers for, although the vote waß on the Estimates, it was being feared that that was all and nothing more. The neglect of this road the previous year being fresh in the memory of settlers, when only a paltry £SOO was voted for this important work of which the amount of £250 only wis spent. Indications are that the Pomorangi road will be completed this season which will mean that only two and abalf miles out of a total of fifty miles will be left to complete. Settlers hope that a vote will be secured on the next Estimates to at last make the completion of this route an established fact, and in order to secure that it requires the united action of settlers from coast to railway, and the business people of Te Kuiti, and all of whose interests are identical. Metalling is now being carried on at both ends, and in addition settlers have carried loans which will complete the metalling of ths route with the two and a-half miles to be widened after this season.

That the completion of this route is an imperative and urgent necessity, cannot be gainsaid to settlers. It will mean a welcome change from many years of isolation* and will enable them to more speedily bring about a higher Btate of production in the districts affected and thereby not only benefit the community at large, but the Dominion as a whole. To the business people of Te Kuiti a decided advantage would be gained in the various avenues of commerce, more especially in the direction of the distribution of merchandise. To the jaded indoor worker and the access to the beautiful sea coast wou'd be made easy by means of vehicular and motor transit. The route when completed will be an especially fine one lor those who are admirers of the pristine beauty of our country. Among the many interesting and beautiful panoramas of landscape is one which embodies the snow-capped mountains of Ngaruhoe and Ruapehu, emitting at times columns of thick black smoke, whilst on clear, fine days. Taranaki's sentinal, Mt. Egmont, also affords an interesting and beautiful spectacle. Such is the southern aspect in general. On the north to north-eastern side Pirongia mountain is to be seen pilently watching over, and, as it were, viewing with majeßtic grandeur the fertile hills and valleys of the Waikato and the King Country. Not only from the settlers' point of view and the commercial viewpoint, are the advantages of this route obvious. It is of interest to all the shootiats, the picnickers, the plea-sure-Beekere, the disciples of Isaac Walton, and generally to those who are admirers of things beautiful.